State Laws Force Commission's Hand
New apartments come to Downtown, The Commission laments change, and The City Manager moves to Santa Barbaratown
New Mixed Use Building Downtown
A new mixed-use building is going to be developed in the heart of Downtown. If you’ve spent any time there, you’ve seen the green fence surrounding the open basement of the former diner/nail salon which burned down in 2019. This will be one of the first new high density developments in the Downtown Core, and it brought the reality of the Downtown Specific Plan to business owners and the Planning Commission alike.
The building is going to be 6 stories tall—roughly double the height of adjacent buildings—with bottom-floor commercial space, a stacked parking system, and 30 rental apartments. The apartments will include 1, 2, and 3-bedroom units with three units being deed-restricted to Very Low Income ($44,670/year or less for a family of 4)—one of each size.
The alley between the building and Kansai Sushi will be expanded for 2-way traffic and the two trees flanking the bus stop on B Street will be replaced with new Crepe Myrtles (a design choice from the City, despite not being native trees).
The building itself will be a bit unique as it’s a modular construction. This means that the individual rooms will be framed, plumbed, wired, and drywalled off-site and then fixed into place like a puzzle. It will still meet all building codes and be treated the same as any other building that has been built in-place. The upside is that this drastically reduces on-site construction time (up to 50%, according to the developer) and reduces cost by being built in a factory.
Thanks to legislation handed down from the State, the addition of 3 Very Low Income units grants the developer unlimited waivers from local ordinances. They only took 7, though:
Floor Area Ratio — This would prevent the project from being built at the desired density
Height — It will be 78 feet tall instead of the general limit of 75 feet.
100% Lot Coverage — The Municipal Code has an upper limit of 95% lot coverage
Parking Setback — Parking should be set back farther, according to Muni Code
Setback of Upper Floors — Code requires smaller upper floors
Parking Space Sizes — Parking spaces should be 10’, and the stacked system has smaller spots
Minimum number of parking spots — They only have room for 27 spots for 30 units
Although a big change from what already exists in the Downtown Core, this overall seems like a good building. Mixed-use is essential to downtown and using the stacked parking system should make people happy.
Parking Parking Parking
Parking is always a concern for the Planning Commission. With the car-centric development pattern of our City, it’s difficult to exist without one. However, State law—in an effort to get some housing built—has taken away some local control that cities—specifically planning commissions like this one—have over development. “We have parking,” the developer said, “The State allows us to not have parking.”
Commissioner Meyers had some detailed questions about parking and how the automated system works, “…to see if it’s gonna create chaos or have a nice flow to it,” he said. According to his impromptu discussions with random people downtown steered him toward concerns about downtown residents taking up parking in municipal lots and on the streets, though that concern was unverified.
City staff confirmed that there are 6 lots in the Downtown Area with 1,689 parking spots. I’d wager City Staff has a much more generous idea of what constitutes downtown than the average resident—I doubt any resident will be parking behind the AT&T Building and walking to the Dirty Bird, even though both are technically Downtown. One of the Commissioners even went so far as to ask if the 4 hour restrictions for municipal lots was enforced, which staff confirmed that it definitely is.
The automated parking vendor showed a video of how their product works, and it seems really cool. Meyers asked reasonable questions about backup electricity for the system and how the cars would be moved around. The video demonstrated how things work, and the vendor confirmed that both generator and battery backups are available options.
Commissioners Franco Claussen, Goodbody, and Meyers expressed concern about loading and unloading with the system. The developer pointed out that there are two different alleys adjacent to the building, one of which doesn’t get much use and could be used as a loading area. However, it would take coordination with the City to get anything designated as a loading area.
Community Outreach
Commissioners Franco Claussen and Patterson expressed concern about the amount of community engagement that had gone into the project. The standard practice is to send mailers to every owner within 300 feet of the project and a short list of interested parties. Commissioner Patterson lamented that there was no outreach plan on the City’s end for the development, though nobody has expressed this concern with other projects.
Commissioner Franco Claussen seemed to sum up the feelings of the Commission when she said “I know we can’t mandate [outreach], but can it be a more suggested thing that we do?” City Staff pointed out that the City has developed uniform policies—including as recently as a few months ago—so that they can be followed uniformly. Commissioner Franco Claussen also cast doubt on the effectiveness of the standard outreach, “Not a lot of people look at those cards.”
Commissioner Franco Claussen seemed to have concern that any kind of newer market-rate construction was anti-family, saying, “Hayward, which is a family community” multiple times throughout her comments. She also questioned whether or not the building would be ADA compliant, and the developer insisted that it has to be to meet federal law and includes 2 handicapped parking spots. The developer also pointed out that having 3 bedroom units is a rarity and are perfect for families with multiple children—for example, a family with three kids.
Also, to put the unit size into perspective, the 3 bedroom units are bigger than my own home at 1,280 sq. ft. The 2-bedroom units are 1,169 sq. ft., which a family of three to four can live in quite comfortably. And the 1-bedroom units are 716 sq. ft. which is still pretty big. These units won’t solve the housing crisis, but adding in 30 units downtown which are walkable to every amenity Hayward has to offer will be a boon for the residents and Downtown businesses.
Community Impact
Commissioner Stevens’ lone question was whether or not a shadow study had been conducted. City Staff said that they were not required and so had not been conducted. The public pushback came primarily from the The Bistro out of a concern for the shadows the tall building would create. I agree that a shadow study should have been a part of the Downtown Specific Plan, but it wasn’t. Though I’d argue that the afternoon sun is pretty brutal—given the tinted windows of every business on the East side of Main street, I’m not the only one.
The concern that this, and other comments, represented are a potential change to the character of Downtown. And taking that into account is absolutely something we should do. Unfortunately, when the Downtown Specific Plan was approved in 2019, the Council agreed to allow buildings of up to 7 stories in the Downtown core. I don’t like that particular ultra-densification when we still have most of the City zoned for single-family housing. But that’s the law as approved by City Council. This is in our hands.
Commissioner Meyers expressed concern about the impact of construction on the businesses and traffic downtown. The developer pointed out that the modular construction techniques would actually reduce impacts to the local businesses in a big way. Though, I’m personally looking forward to seeing the 200 ton crane they’ll be using to slot the units into place.
Commissioner Stevens was also dismissive of having another ground floor commercial space, given the multiple vacant storefronts downtown. Though the issue is a lot more complicated than just having storefronts available with the giant size of most of the properties, the retrofitting work needed to bring the building up to code that a tenant can’t afford, and absentee landlords who just can’t be bothered to manage a property. A 1,000 sq. ft. space is a manageable size and it will no doubt fill quickly.
Limits of Local Control
The primary gripe that the Planning Commission had was with the lack of local control over the development. “As a planning commissioner,” said Chair Lowe, “I really understand we need more autonomy at the local level.”
But State law mandated that the Planning Commission could not deny this project unless there was a health and safety hazard or it was in violation of state building code. The Commission did not seem to like this building. They didn’t like its height, the parking situation, or even how it had incorporated Very Low Income units.
“I feel like [including the Very Low Income units] was just used to get the density bonus waivers,” Commissioner Patterson said. But that’s exactly how the State government intended the law to work. The Housing Department was happy to get 2 permanent deed-restricted affordable units (with another one being deed-restricted for 55 years), Economic Development is likely happy to have a giant hole in Downtown plugged, and the Planning Department recommended approval of the project without any visible gritting of teeth.
I think having local control is great and we in California still enjoy a lot of it. But it’s pretty clear that too many cities have abused that local control for too long to the detriment of their communities. If we want to think about equity, as Commissioner Franco-Claussen said, then we need to recognize that downtown units may allow one family to move out of the single family home they share with two other families. A young family may finally move out of their parent’s home and get the space they need.
These 30 units will be more affordable than the 12 houses on the small-lot subdivision the commission approved in December, or the 13 unit townhome development they approved last month—this will have more units than both of those combined on a fraction of the land.
Families can live in apartments and townhomes comfortably. Elders can live in apartments with elevators comfortably. Affordability is definitely an issue, but every market-rate development has it. Given past behavior, I worry that this kind of criticism will only be for the kind of higher density housing the City desperately needs.
City Manager Moves to Santa Barbara
Breaking news! City Manager Kelly McAdoo tenders her resignation, effective May 3rd. But far from retiring, she’ll be moving to Santa Barbara to act as their City Administrator—essentially the same position.
When she became City Manager eight years ago, the City Council pulled hard to keep her, raising her salary far above that of her predecessor. As essentially the City’s CEO, McAdoo has been responsible for managing most of the City’s departments.
It’s unclear who will replace her, even in the interim, but they’ll definitely have big shoes to fill. The timing is also interesting, given that May is when a lot of budget discussions happen before the final budget needs to be approved in June.
It’s unclear why the move happened, though it’s clearly not for the pay. The City Manager’s current salary is $380,972.80 per year while the same position in Santa Barbara is a mere $342,281.40 per year. Though, honestly, taking a $40,000 pay cut at that level is probably negligible (though it’s the equivalent to a $19/hour full-time salary for the rest of us).
We’ll keep our eyes peeled for developments in the coming months.